1962 April - Baalbek, Lebanon. Six columns of The Temple of Jupiter and the Great Court each 66 feet (20 metres) high. Originally this building had 128 columns and was built on a massive plinth of 27 huge limestone blocks. Four of these, each weighing over 300 tons, are in a row near the bottom of the picture. Not in the picture, three blocks weighed 800 tons and two more are known to weigh 1200 tons. These megaliths are the largest hand worked stones from anywhere in the world. The complex was built by the Romans during the 1st century AD.

On the right of this picture are columns of the Temple of Bacchus built between AD150 and 250. Originally the temple had 42 columns each 62 feet (19 metres) high. That is 28 feet (8.5 metres) taller than the somewhat earlier Parthenon in Greece - and here in Baalbeck the temple is in far better condition. In 1984 UNESCO listed it as part of the Baalbek World Heritage Site. Baalbek as a religious site dates back about 9000 years and was known by the Greeks as Heliopolis, simply translated as City of the Sun. The town is at the head of the Bekaa valley roughly 7.5 miles (12 kilometres) from the Syrian border.

Camera MPP Microflex Twin Lens Reflex with F3.5 77.5mm Taylor Taylor Hobson lens. Film Kodak Verichrome Pan with Yellow filter x1 - F8 1/125 second. Developed by Photo Sphinx, Jack Kassab in Beirut.

Negative Lebanon 62-03-05 © Tony Morrison